Addressing water scarcity in agriculture: how can indigenous or traditional practices help?
The world’s population is growing, with the need to produce more food. This challenge exacerbates water scarcity, which is further compounded by a changing climate. To cope with the challenge, could indigenous or traditional practices support climate change adaptation efforts on reducing water scarcity in agriculture?
To address this question, a first step consisted in reviewing traditional/indigenous practices used by rural communities as coping strategies for climate change adaptation in agriculture. An agro-ecology grouping was used, seeking to highlight the potential of transferring practices between areas of similar agro-ecology.
A compendium of such practices was thus compiled and is available for reference.
The need to mainstream indigenous knowledge and traditional practices into sustainable development has also been well acknowledged, including through the 1989 Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate change.
However, evidence of successful use and transfer of indigenous practices to cope with water scarcity in agriculture remains scattered. This discussion is an opportunity to systematically identify practices that have demonstrated their effectiveness in supporting the livelihoods of the communities and to classify them in such a way that they can be upscaled or replicated elsewhere. This is especially crucial for areas with similar agro-ecological characteristics. It is expected that some of these practices will then support projects aimed at addressing water scarcity in agriculture, with an objective roadmap comprising recommended practices/ technologies and the required supporting policies, as relevant.
Furthermore, different opinions are still being voiced on semantics (e.g. indigenous knowledge, traditional knowledge, knowledge of indigenous peoples, community knowledge or local knowledge systems…). This discussion will also seek to reach some consensus on the most appropriate terminology to be used in the final version of the compendium.
The purpose of this discussion is thus to call for participants’ contributions to the following questions.
1. Sustainability and replicability of the practices
From your experience (or knowledge), which of the indigenous/traditional practices below have been successfully applied and if possible, replicated (different times or places) in order to cope with water scarcity in agriculture? Please provide examples and references.
- Weather forecasting and early warning systems
- Grazing and Livestock management
- Soil and Water Management (including cross slope barriers)
- Water harvesting (and storage practices)
- Forest Management (as a coping strategy to water scarcity)
- Integrated wetlands and fisheries management
- Other (please specify)
2. Moving beyond semantics
Having discussed all these practices/ technologies, which terminology would be most suitable to neutrally label them in the compendium?
Please briefly substantiate your argument with most updated references, when available.
We look forward to your inputs to this important discussion.
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Patrick Bahal’okwibale FAO, Ethiopia |
Jean-Marc Mwenge Kahinda CSIR, South Africa |
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Hello,
My recent paper shows that organic management compared to conventional/chemical farming provides preserves the endemic earthworms and soil organic matter whilst increasing soil water storage by +28.7% on average (http://www.mdpi.com/2571-8789/2/2/33). If the soil bulk density is 1.0 g/cm3, this is directly relates to having the equivalent of 28.7% extra rainfall. These dozen or so studies were mainly from Europe and Asia.
In Africa, for example, Lal (1974) made comparisons in similar situations in Nigeria, where eudrilid earthworms are common, and found about 24 times the numbers of worm casts and infiltration rates almost doubled under zero-till plots. Also in Nigeria, Wilkinson (1975) showed a positive relationship between infiltration rates and earthworms in fallow, and Aina (1984) confirmed a 2.5 times increase in infiltrability due to earthworms in forest soils.
My recommendation would be to vermi-compost all organic wastes for return to the fields, to maintain leguminous cover-crops to fix nitrogen & to protect the soil from erosion, and to use non-chemical weed & pest control to preserve the worms.
Ref - Blakemore, R.J. (2018). Critical Decline of Earthworms from Organic Origins under Intensive, Humic SOM-Depleting Agriculture. Soil Systems. 2(2): 33. [http://www.mdpi.com/2571-8789/2/2/33].
Blog - https://vermecology.wordpress.com/2018/05/27/wormageddon-destruction-in….
Forest management for sustainable water supply
Communities which historically relied on natural resources (water, forests, pastures, land) to provide a livelihood have devised forest management methods to ensure continuous water supply.
Long before science reiterated relations between forest conservation and sustainable water supply, rural communities had acknowledged the existing relationships, and developed systems for forest management. For example, in Africa most of the forests commonly known as "community forests" survived due to the use of indigenous/customary rules and regulations on rights, access and management of the shared forest and water resources.
Rights and access to particular forests came with clear roles, benefits and responsibilities: who could access which forest, when, what forest products to harvest (fruits, firewood, timber, herbs), and how much. To ensure adherence to the rules of access and harvest, the communities had narratives and practices spelling out the type of punishment for those who defied the rules. Stories have always formed part of the daily lives of many communities – to entertain, inform and educate. So, who would cut down a tree at the very top of a hill reserved as sacred for prayer sessions when the consequence was death of a loved one or incapability of one’s body organs? Who would water livestock at locations reserved for portable water when the punishment would be death of their livestock? So, adherence, mainly through respect to the rules saw many forest areas conserved. As we know of the water cycle, trees contribute to rain formation.
How do we document and incorporate some of the customary conservation practices into our education system and policy formulation as a way to enhance forest management for sustainable water supply?
Grazing and livestock management: Living with water scarcity management by pastoral communities.
Pastoralists in many parts of the world are accustomed to dealing with scarcities including of water. This is because areas inhabited by pastoralists are sometimes considered “marginal,” as they lack relative abundance of resources compared to other agroecological areas. However, how pastoralists manage water and hence their landscape is linked to availability of another vital resource; pasture. To prevent degradation of both water and pastures, communal management is often employed that guides movement (mobility) across the landscape in accessing water and pasture resources. Under communal governance systems decisions are negotiated such as when to construct new wells, who is responsible and in effect who has access, when and for how long. This implies a coordinated approach in addressing water scarcity that combines local/ traditional knowledge on the landscape including pasture availability and development of new water infrastructure.
The Boran in East Africa monitor use and conditions of water their resources. The communities for example dig deep well is areas considered dry seasons grazing areas/reserves. These wells are often labour intensive in construction and also in drawing water from, thus necessitating people coming together and on rotational basis fetch water for all entitled households’ livestock. These areas also have restricted access that is mainly tied to adaptation to extreme dry conditions such as drought. Examples include preferences being given to nearby households, and later sometimes only to calves as they cannot travel to other distant water sources. In wet seasons, water is collected in shallow ponds or pans and use is often unrestricted.
Central to these are also principles such as reciprocity and flexibility which are key in adaptation. Inter-village or inter-community understandings are guided by reliance on one another’s resources including water from one season to another depending on intensities of extreme events and needs. Yet these rights are often not fixed but negotiated as maybe needed from season to season or event to event.
Water scarcity and Closed Loop Recycling of Wastes
High organic matter soils are reservoirs for water and that reservoir can be made bigger thus making irrigation water go 5 or even 10 times further. As the world gets more populated, it produces more agricultural and urban wastes. As it gets richer, it produces more urban wastes. For the human race to survive, we have to recycle these wastes. Most, if not all crop wastes, and many (most in some areas) urban wastes can be recycled using aerobic digestion, i.e. “composting” and TAD (Thermophilic Aerobic Digestion – pumping air in to raise the temperature). It is easy to accept that crop wastes from farming, or green wastes from urban gardens can be composted, but so can many industrial wastes.
Take hard plastics out of consideration, they are difficult but many plastics can be successfully recycled. For example, urea-formaldehyde is the “glue” used to make boards for furniture manufacture and discarded chip-board and MDF (Medium Density Fibreboard) and, when shredded, are a very useful source of Nitrogen fertiliser and are helpful in composting other materials. Another example is a “base” plastic (used to manufacture a wide range of glues and consumer product plastics) is PVA – Polyvinyl alcohol. This is “rocket fuel” for the micro-organisms in a compost heap but it is not easy to handle. It is liquid at temperatures above 60 or 70 degrees C but becomes progressively sticky as it cools.
Much easier to handle are materials such as crop residues, green wastes from urban gardens or city arboricultural management, cardboard and tissues and some industrial wastes. A good source of Nitrogen fertiliser is sewage and thorough composting above 60 degrees C will control pathogens. (Turn the heap every few days until it gets to 60 degrees, turn again and get up to 60. Three or four times up to 60 will dramatically reduce pathogen transfer risk.)
I shall soon be introducing a regular series on a page at https://landresearchonline.com/
Soil and Water Management (including cross slope barriers)
Management of water using the Indigenous knowledge in the Brong Ahafo region in Ghana includes holding some rivers such as the Tano river as a deity or inhabited by a god, hence prohibiting people from fishing in it. This puts fear in the indigenes thus keeping water bodies well protected and well managed for a longer period. Suggestions by the chiefs and elders are that, there should be bye-laws and subsequently seek protection by global instruments.
Earlier this month of June 2018, I was fortunate to spend a few days visiting the Cuvelai, Okavango and Zambezi river basins in the north of Namibia to explore opportunities for rainwater and floodwater harvesting. I also met with members of several communities who are essentially pastoralists.
On the question of how the communities coped in the past with water scarcity during the dry season, the answer was that there was (and still is) a practice of preparing hand dug wells along the banks of the river channels, in anticipation of the floods. When the flood came with the river overflowing, these wells were used to trap the flood water. This water would then be stored in the wells after the floods receded and the river eventually ran dry. The water would then be used for the livestock.
This traditional practice is somehow now improved with the current practice of modern earth dams for which the government of Namibia has a standard design, to minimise seepage, evaporation losses and sedimentation.
In addition, the experience shared by Liliana Castillo by the Zenu tribe in north Coast of Colombia is quite similar to what communities do or experience along the Zambezi River do in Namibia, with similar conditions - excess water during the rainy season and deficit during the dry one. They also harvest flood water in natural streams (as opposed to the network of canals in north Colombia) that are perpendicular to the main stem, allowing water to reach areas that are quite far away from the main river. This water is then used during the dry season for livestock and agriculture.
Man made interventions (mostly road infrastructure) are suspected to have interfered with this natural course of flood water. The communities recommended that future designs of such infrastructure takes into consideration this natural movement of water during floods and if possible, further facilitate the process for areas that are naturally prone to receive such excess flood water, which will be used for productive uses, improving food security.
English translation below
En matière de maraichage en péri urbain, on constate que les autochtones privilégient les arrosoirs simples, des petits récipients et s’attaquent à de petites superficies (10 m2/planche) pour enfin produire les meilleurs rendements agricoles(rendement).
Cela s’explique essentiellement par la maitrise e la distribution localisée de l’eau au pied des plants, avec un bon entretien. On retrouve un peu cette situation dans le goutte à goutte mais avec moins de performance car avec le goutte à goutte, les superficies sont généralement plus importantes que les 10 m2 par planches habituellement mis en valeur par les maraichers.
As regards market gardening around the city, we note that the natives prefer simple watering cans, small containers and attack small areas (10 m2/ plantation) to finally produce the best agricultural yields (yield).
This is mainly explained by the control and localized distribution of water at the base of the plants, with good care. We find nearly the same situation in the drip but with less efficiency because the surfaces are generally larger than the 10 m2 per plantation usually exploited by the market gardeners.
''The Naturally bred rural female farmer'' is always the term that I would like to portray my farming experiences in my country and this has given me an adequate knowledge to contribute positively towards any fora that discusses auricular practices most especially within the African concept. In that case i can comfortably put forward my contributions in addressing the above Topic and go ahead to give out some few recommendations that may go a long way in addressing the issue.
In my country, the Gambia, for instance the most important and valuable naturally gifted asset that we have is fresh water. The Gambia, in West Africa is mostly surrounded by fresh water in the forms of rivers, lakes and natural canals. This ,makes agriculture one of the best income generating activity for the country. In a flash back( that is as far back as i can remember) in the late 1970s towards the early 80s the Government of the Gambia had a great chance to grow rice along the river Gambia using a simple and cheap means of water supply which to water the rice fields and this was called ''IRRIGATION''. In this system, a simple machine was used to propel water from the river to the rice fields and water was accesses using locally made canals. in that case water was available through out the dry season which made it possible for rural people of the Gambia to embark on a year round rice production. In that, the Gambia at those time was self sufficient in rice and only locally grown rice was consumed and farmers even had excess to sell to the local market.
My suggestion therefore for indigenous traditional farming practices would be for farmers to go back to the local irrigation system hence we have the river Gambia which is fresh and readily available.
ENGLISH TRANSLATION BELOW
Dans un contexte de changement climatique de plus en plus accru, l'agriculture exige des quantités importantes d'eau. Dans les zones sahélienns notamment dans le septentrion camerounais (bassin du lac-tchad), la ressource en eau constitue une denrée rare et stratégique qui détermine la consistance de la production agricole. La raréfaction de cette ressource dans le sahel camerounais pousse de nombreux agriculteurs à délaisser leurs activités agricoles au détriment du commerce ou l'élevage bovin. Nonobstant ces réalités notées, il existe des pratiques de résilience élaborées par les populations afin d'atténuer la pénurie de la ressource en eau du faite du phénomène des changements climatiques.
On note entre autre techniques ;
- La conservation des eaux de pluie à travers des mares d'eau ( qu'on appelle OKOLORÉ dans la langue Locle qui est le Fulfuldé c'est à dire la langue peulhe). Cette eau conservée au niveau même des exploitations permet de mieux irriguer les champs;
- Le développement des puits-forages permettant de tirer l'eau du sous-sol pour l'irrigation des exploitations agricoles ;
- l'intensification de l'éradication des arbres trop gourmantes en eau (l'arbre eucalyptus) autour des périmètres agricols;
- La migration vers des cultures ne demandant pas trop d'eau à l'instar du coton, la patate, le mil, le maïs...
Cette liste des pratiques endogènes n'est pas exhaustive, mais il est claire que le stress hydrique induit d'énormes mutations au niveau des populations locales sur le plan agricol. De plus, cette pénurie en eau est source de conflits entre les agriculteurs eux-mêmes et puis entre les éleveurs et agriculteurs.
Cordialement,
Abdou-Raman Mamoudou
Ingénieur en sciences sociales pour le développement et Étudiant en Master Économie Appliquée, spécialité Stratégie Industrielle et Économie Agricole
Université de Maroua Cameroun
In a context of ever increasing climate change, agriculture demands important volumes of water. In the Sahelian regions, in particular in the North of Cameroon (Lake Tchad basin) the water resource is a rare and strategic commodity which determines the consistency of agricultural production. The increasing scarcity of this resource in the Cameroonean Sahel drives many farmers to abandon their farming activities to the detriment of business and cattle raising. Despite the above realities, there are methods of adaptation developed by the population so as to reduce the effect of the lack of water resources produced by the phenomenon of climate change.
Among other techniques we note:
- Conservation of rain water in water ponds (called OKOLORÉ in the Locle language which is the Fulfuldé that is the language of the Fulani people). This water preserved near the farming plots allows for better irrigation of the fields;
- Development of wells enables underground water to be drawn on for the irrigation of farming plots;
- Intensification of elimination of trees that need a lot of water (like eucalyptus) near the farming areas;
- Switching to crops that do not demand too much water, like cotton, sweet potato, millet, corn, etc.
list of home-grown practices is not exhaustive, but it is clear the emphasis on water produces many changes in the local populations’ farming. Furthermore, this water scarcity causes many conflicts among the farmers themselves and between the herders and farmers.
Best regards,
Abdou-Raman Mamoudou
There is a tree means that there are possibilities to grow more trees. When the rain comes, the water can be trapped by the trees, make its circumstances is more humid and the crops may grow as there is water supply in the ground. The more trees the more water can be kept in the ground and there is a possibility to make a well someday.
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